Women who are trying to become pregnant may not be using the most accurate predictor of fertility, says a researcher who has studied the best method of gauging the "window of fertility." That window is the six-day period during which conception can occur. It consists of the five days before ovulation and the day of ovulation itself. But the greatest probability of conception results from intercourse one or two days before ovulation, not the day of ovulation as had been thought, says Dr.

Stressed out women have more difficulty getting pregnant than women with less stress, according to a new study this week in the journal Human Reproduction. Although the relationship between stress and trouble getting pregnant has been hinted at before, it had never been scientifically proven before now. This new research marks the first time that scientists have found a direct link between stress and infertility. "Women should not look at these findings and feel guilty," said Courtney Denning-Johnson Lynch, director of reproductive epidemiology at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, and the lead author of the paper.

Female fertility can be a mysterious business. No matter how carefully a woman tracks her ovulation or times her romantic encounters, there's no guarantee that a baby will be on the way. Women who have trouble conceiving get lots of free advice: Relax, take a cruise, try different intercourse positions, etc. But could the solution lie in a supplement? Two companies promise to boost female fertility through blends of herbs, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. The ingredient list for FertilityBlend for Women, manufactured by Daily Wellness Inc., includes the herb chasteberry ( Vitex agnus-castus )

Female fertility can be a mysterious business. No matter how carefully a woman tracks her ovulation or times her romantic encounters, there's no guarantee that a baby will be on the way. Women who have trouble conceiving get lots of free advice: Relax, take a cruise, try different intercourse positions, etc. But could the solution lie in a supplement? Two companies promise to boost female fertility through blends of herbs, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. The ingredient list for FertilityBlend for Women, manufactured by Daily Wellness Inc., includes the herb chasteberry ( Vitex agnus-castus )

Today's article on the new papal document Veritatis Splendor states that "the church approves only the rhythm method of birth control . . . " (July 10). The rhythm method has not been taught in the Catholic Church for decades. I suggest your writers educate themselves on the methods used throughout the world during this time: the ovulation and symptothermal methods. The rhythm method was unreliable because it relied on the woman having regular menstruations, whereas modern methods are effective and do not require any regularity on the part of the woman.

Women who have outwardly normal menstrual periods may lose bone rapidly if they do not ovulate during every monthly cycle, a study concludes. Lack of menstruation, such as occurs in women who exercise strenuously or do not eat enough, has long been associated with weakened bones. But until now, experts assumed that women who menstruated regularly also produced hormones that kept their bones healthy.

Question: I hope you can clarify for me a baffling advertisement that ran in a recent issue of the Los Angeles Times under the heading: "Gender Selection . . . Now You Have a Choice." The ad goes on to describe its product, GenderChoice, as "a completely natural product containing no drugs or chemicals, GenderChoice also offers a money-back guarantee (Limited Warranty--see package for details)."

A woman treated with fertility drugs is pregnant with a record number of 12 embryos, but chances are great that she will not be able to bring any to term, an Israeli doctor says. Dr. Jehoshua Dor of Tel Hashomer Hospital outside Tel Aviv said in an interview Wednesday that some of the embryos will have to be removed from the womb if the pregnancy is to succeed--but that the process risks damaging others.

After changing the face of medicine, aerospace and a host of other fields, high tech has finally come to sex. A Century City-based investment banking firm has formed a new venture with privately held Rabbit Computer Corp. of Beverly Hills to market an electronic device that lets a woman know up to a week in advance when her fertile days begin and end.

Stressed out women have more difficulty getting pregnant than women with less stress, according to a new study this week in the journal Human Reproduction. Although the relationship between stress and trouble getting pregnant has been hinted at before, it had never been scientifically proven before now. This new research marks the first time that scientists have found a direct link between stress and infertility. "Women should not look at these findings and feel guilty," said Courtney Denning-Johnson Lynch, director of reproductive epidemiology at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, and the lead author of the paper.

Women who are ovulating tend to pay more attention to their appearance, perhaps in a subliminal effort to attract a mate, according to researchers at UCLA and the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire. "They tend to put on skirts instead of pants, show more skin and generally dress more fashionably," said study coauthor Martie Haselton, an associate professor of communication studies and psychology at UCLA.

August 27, 2005 | David P. Barash, DAVID P. BARASH, an author and a professor of psychology at the University of Washington, is working on a new book, "Womanly Mysteries: A Darwinian Look at What We Don't Know About the Female Body."

IT HAS BECOME fashionable -- at least in some quarters -- to speak of "the death of science," the idea that we've already finished with the big stuff, so what's left is just a matter of "mopping up." In any event, I would like to make my own proclamation: Science isn't dead. It isn't even sick. There is a huge amount that we do not know; indeed, we don't know all that we don't know. Not only that, many of the things we don't know are right under our noses.

Women ovulate once a month. Couples' lives, their choice of contraception and even their efforts to combat infertility have been based upon this well-established biological notion. But some researchers say it might not be as ironclad as we've thought. Canadian scientists have found that a few women ovulate twice in a month; others have the biological potential to do so.

Women who are trying to become pregnant may not be using the most accurate predictor of fertility, says a researcher who has studied the best method of gauging the "window of fertility." That window is the six-day period during which conception can occur. It consists of the five days before ovulation and the day of ovulation itself. But the greatest probability of conception results from intercourse one or two days before ovulation, not the day of ovulation as had been thought, says Dr.

U.S. doctors should radically alter their treatment strategies if they want to stem the tide of medically risky multiple births without lowering the success of fertility treatments, a team of New York and Illinois doctors says. Writing in today's New England Journal of Medicine, they present evidence that it is extremely difficult for doctors using the common fertility treatment called ovulation induction to predict the chance of a multiple birth.

The finding that a woman's fertility window is much shorter than believed--reported Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine--is expected to give a boost to the use of home ovulation predictor kits, although the kits predict for a much shorter period. Nearly all pregnancies among 221 women studied occurred during a six-day period ending on the day of ovulation, proving the optimal days for conceiving are far fewer than commonly believed.

The tensions simmering between VLI Corp. founder and former chairman Bruce Vorhauer and the company's management boiled over Tuesday when Vorhauer told shareholders at the company's annual meeting he wants to replace top executives and redirect the marketing strategy of the Irvine maker of personal care products.

Predicting the time of ovulation is important for the estimated 15% of American couples with fertility problems. Now, a new over-the-counter kit, Clearplan Easy One Step Ovulation Predictor, is being promoted as easier to use than several competing products. To use the home kit, which sells for about $25 in drugstores and supermarkets, a woman places the tip of a pen-sized test instrument in the urine stream.

Today's article on the new papal document Veritatis Splendor states that "the church approves only the rhythm method of birth control . . . " (July 10). The rhythm method has not been taught in the Catholic Church for decades. I suggest your writers educate themselves on the methods used throughout the world during this time: the ovulation and symptothermal methods. The rhythm method was unreliable because it relied on the woman having regular menstruations, whereas modern methods are effective and do not require any regularity on the part of the woman.

A woman treated with fertility drugs is pregnant with a record number of 12 embryos, but chances are great that she will not be able to bring any to term, an Israeli doctor says. Dr. Jehoshua Dor of Tel Hashomer Hospital outside Tel Aviv said in an interview Wednesday that some of the embryos will have to be removed from the womb if the pregnancy is to succeed--but that the process risks damaging others.